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Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund Missive © 2024

Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund Missive

End of year 2024 - Updates from D//F

By Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund —
End of year 2024 - Updates from D//F
Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund just met for the Cohort 4 - kickoff at Ford Foundation in NYC for 2 days of intense discussions, identifying common ground, relentless peer-review and forging connections. People interested in the same (allegedly) obscure topic came together - creating a buzz of excitement and curiosity and opportunity in the room. Just look at these faces (and this was at the end of day 2 already)!

Dear Reader-
I hope this email finds you...well.
Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund recently updated its technical infrastructure (including its newsletter provider) and returns all shiny and new with a myriad of updates- just in time for the festive season:

Overview

  • (Cohort 3): New reports published
  • (Cohort 4): 9 new projects commencing
  • Review: Recent talks & publications on D//F


(Cohort 3): 2 New reports published

Balancing the Benefits and Risks of Open Source GenAI
Nick Botton & Mathias Vermeulen (AWO Agency)
https://infrastructureinsights.fund/projects/cutting-through-open-washing/

Full Report: Access the full paper here.

Our grantees from AWO Agency have released a new paper on boundaries of openness, focusing on the intricate dynamics of open-source generative AI (GenAI)

  • Openness Challenges: GenAI openness boosts competition and knowledge distribution but opens the door to misuse by malicious actors who can strip safeguards and use AI models harmfully.
  • Open Washing: Companies misleadingly label models as "open" while maintaining restrictive practices, diverting focus from genuine openness risks and complicating regulation.
  • Policy Gaps: Current frameworks (EU, UK, US) inadequately address GenAI openness. Opportunities exist, such as the EU AI Act's Code of Practice on General Purpose AI.
  • Recommendations: The paper proposes fostering openness for external researchers to maximize transparency benefits while managing risks collaboratively.

Fediverse Governance: Successes and Gaps
Erin Kissane & Darius Kazemi
https://infrastructureinsights.fund/projects/fediverse-governance-successes-gaps/

Full Report:  here

Decentralized social media, particularly the Fediverse, represents both immense opportunities (particularly at this very moment in time) and nuanced social and technical risks.
Researchers Erin Kissane and Darius Kazemi explored governance practices on various small to medium sized Fediverse servers, identifying successes and gaps to inform future improvements.

🎧 Listen: Erin Kissane's insights on TechPolicy.Press: Podcast here.
👨‍🏫 Watch: Darius Kazemi’s talks at FOSSY and XOXO: FOSSY, XOXO.

  • The research underscores the importance of governance models in supporting community-led social networks, helping them avoid the pitfalls of centralized platforms like pervasive surveillance or manipulative algorithms.
  • It highlights gaps in human and digital infrastructure, focusing on practical strategies to empower server administrators while improving resiliency.

Huge congratulations to both research groups on their report's release and the meaningful impact they bring!

📢 (Cohort 4) 9 new projects commencing

The fourth cohort of the Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund, commencing their projects from this November, brings forward an exciting range of projects across thematic clusters.
New initiatives are set to advance governance, privacy, sustainability, and research ecosystems for open technologies globally (detailed info below and in our press release).
We are so excited to work with the new researchers- give them a warm welcome (partial group picture above).

Overview Cohort 4:

Governance, Policy & Regulation

Privacy & Security

Sustainability & Community Impact

Research Software Ecosystem & Metrics

Further updates and co-commissions to follow- stay tuned!

Review: Recent talks & publications on and with D//F

🔍 Event Spotlight: The Tech We Want Summit

As the first endeavour in a series of outreach activities Katharina Meyer, D//Fs Program Director, joined the Tech We Want Summit to discuss the critical yet invisible role of maintenance in digital infrastructure.

The summit featured 43 speakers across 23 countries and over 700 participants, engaging i.a. in discussions about sustainable software development.

Re-watch the Panel here: https://blog.okfn.org/2024/11/06/panel-the-tech-we-want-is-built-and-maintained-with-care/

Discussion Highlights:

  • The Role of Maintenance: Maintaining software systems is as crucial as innovation itself. This ongoing care, akin to tending a garden, ensures the sustainability and functionality of digital ecosystems.
  • Systemic Challenges including: Burnout due to overwhelming workloads., Lack of Recognition, with maintenance often overlooked in favor of innovation, Inadequate Funding, which limits the capacity to support essential work.
  • Ethical and Social Implications: The neglect of digital infrastructure maintenance has serious consequences, including vulnerabilities in critical systems that society depends. The panelists underscored the ethical responsibility to support and care for the technologies underpinning our digital lives.
  • The panel urged a paradigm shift in how maintenance is valued and supported, calling for: Shared Responsibility: Corporations, open-source communities, and funders must collectively recognize and support maintainers, Support Structures: Communities and institutions need to provide resources and frameworks to enable maintainers to thrive.

✨ Event Spotlight: Open Forum Academy Symposium

Katharina furthermore delivered a keynote at the Open Forum Academy Symposium at Harvard, reflecting on the role of research in supporting open-source ecosystems.

Full program here: https://symposium.openforumeurope.org
Preprints of all conference talks and video material will be available soon.

Key Themes of Keynote:

  • Exploring how norms, dependencies, and technical standards underpin open technologies.
  • Balancing market, public, and research interests in public interest technologies.
  • Highlighting D//F’s portfolio as a model for aligning research and societal needs.

Current and former grantees, reviewers and ecosystem partners of D//F also presented their research findings at the Symposium:

  • Stephen Jacobs addressed the limitations of the predominant funding models for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and proposed strategies to ensure long-term project sustainability by focusing on community development.
  • Cailean Osborne, Paul Sharratt and Dawn Foster explored the growing role of governments in funding the development and maintenance of open source software (OSS) and presented insights into measuring the impact of public funding.
  • Matt Germonprez addressed the complexity of open-source software supply chains, proposing a framework to empirically understand them as sociotechnical systems.
  • Ryan Ellis explored the integration of bug bounty programs—vulnerability reward programs designed to identify and address security flaws—with open-source software projects.

In a recent interview with the Internet Policy Review (https://policyreview.info/articles/news/interview-katharina-meyer), Katharina reflected on the critical tension between public interest and profit maximization in the realm of public interest technology - underscoring the need to balancing market dynamics with proactive policies and collaborative governance to ensure open technologies remain robust, equitable, and inclusive.

tldr: Those were just a few highlights of the work that D//F as field-builder and alignment actor undertook in 2024.
We have more activities planned for 2025, such as convening a working group on quantitative methodologies in Open Source-Software and Community-Research, a Manifesto- and our first two commissions with partners.

You will be the first to know!

PS: If you have any questions, remarks, etc. - as always, don't hesitate to reach out!

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